The Vatican declared war on same-sex marriage and civil-union and domestic-partnership laws July 30.

The Congregation For The Doctrine Of The Faith, in a document entitled “Considerations Regarding Proposals To Give Legal Recognition To Unions Between Homosexual Persons” stated: “There are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God’s plan for marriage and family. Marriage is holy, while homosexual acts go against the natural moral law. Homosexual acts close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.”

The document continued: “Those who would move from tolerance to the legitimization of specific rights for cohabiting homosexual persons need to be reminded that the approval or legalization of evil is something far different from the toleration of evil.... When legislation in favor of the recognition of homosexual unions is proposed for the first time in a legislative assembly, the Catholic lawmaker has a moral duty to express his opposition clearly and publicly and to vote against it. To vote in favor of a law so harmful to the common good is gravely immoral.”

Letting gay couples adopt children, the document said, is nothing short of child abuse.

“Allowing children to be adopted by persons living in [same-sex] unions would actually mean doing violence to these children, in the sense that their condition of dependency would be used to place them in an environment that is not conducive to their full human development,” it said.

Gay sex is now legal everywhere in Europe. Armenia was the last European nation to criminalize homosexuality. Its new penal code, which took effect Aug. 1, lifted the ban.

“For the first time in many centuries, and probably since the enactment of Byzantine Emperor Justinian’s legal code in the 6th Century AD, there will be no part of Europe where lesbians, gays and bisexuals face a threat of criminal prosecution simply because of their love for a person of the same sex,” said the International Lesbian & Gay Association’s European branch.

Fifty years ago, two-thirds of today’s 48 European nations criminalized either gay-male sex or both gay and lesbian sex.

ILGA said the two most important factors in the demise of gay-sex bans were a 1981 ruling by the European Court of Human Rights that the bans violated the European Convention on Human Rights, and “the fall of the Iron Curtain and the subsequent accession of the countries of Central and East Europe to the Council of Europe and to the European Convention.”

Armenia was among the nations that were required to decriminalize gay sex as a precondition of being allowed to join the Council of Europe.

“This is an important milestone in the achievement of LGBT rights in Europe,” said ILGA-Europe Executive Director Ailsa Spindler. “But it is just the beginning. A number of countries — Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Serbia/Montenegro and the United Kingdom — still have discriminatory provisions in the criminal law. Thirty-three European countries provide no legal recognition whatsoever for same-sex partners….”

Gay cops in uniform led London’s gay-pride parade July 26. About 80 officers marched.

A post-march festival in Hyde Park attracted 60,000 partygoers, and performers Bananarama, Dead or Alive and Soft Cell.

In a video address to festival attendees, Britain’s top cop, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir John Stevens, urged gays and lesbians to become police officers.

“One way of reducing anti-gay hate crime is to contribute as a member of the MPS staff,” Stevens said. “I would encourage and positively welcome you to come and see if this is a career for you.

About 250 people marched in the first gay-pride parade in St. John, New Brunswick, Canada, July 26.

“The mood was festive and a small crowd in Kings Square supportive and polite as the parade went by,” according to The Halifax Herald.

The parade was a reaction to nasty comments made by Saint John federal Member of Parliament Elsie Wayne who, on May 8, blurted out in the House of Commons: “Why do they have to be out here in the public always debating that they want to call it marriage? Why are they in parades? Why are they dressed up as women on floats? They do not see us getting up on the floats, for heaven’s sake, to say we are husband and wife. We do not do that. Why do they have to go around trying to get a whole lot of publicity? If they are going to live together, they can go live together and shut up about it. There is not any need for this nonsense whatsoever and we should not have to tolerate it in Canada.”

Wayne also is deputy leader of the federal Progressive Conservative Party.

“This parade would never have happened if it wasn’t for Elsie’s remarks,” organizer Judith Meinert told the Herald. “She mobilized people to come out and show their support for the gay community.”

Tel Aviv, Israel, announced July 30 that same-sex couples will have access to city-provided spousal benefits such as discounts at municipal cultural and sports events.

To be eligible, gay couples must present an affidavit declaring they live together.